Zentyal Desktop for Windows XP and 7 clients

Introduction

Zentyal Desktop for Windows is intended to be installed on the desktop clients (workstations) running Windows XP or Windows 7 of a network managed by Zentyal Server, acting as a PDC as well. It should also run without problem on Windows Vista, although it has not been tested on it.

Currently it consists on two things:

• A tool for the auto-configuration of desktop clients for the services provided by Zentyal (mail, samba, Jabber, VoIP, ...): The first time the user logs in a machine it creates a program data directory in user folder with the proper preconfigured settings.
• A distribution of popular free software clients for all these services.

Configured Applications

Here is a list of the applications included and automatically configured by Zentyal Desktop:

• Thunderbird (Mail service): The mail account of the user is read from LDAP and added.
• Ekiga (VoIP): The asterisk account for the user is added.
• Pidgin (Jabber service): The jabber account of the user (if it has one) is added.
• Firefox (Zarafa & User corner): Links to these two services are added to the bookmarks toolbar. Currently it only works if the user corner port is the default one (8888).

Required Scenario

• Zentyal Server 2.0.
• At least one client machine with either Windows XP or 7 installed.

Changes on Server Side to Make it Work

General Changes

• Make sure that you have the File Sharing module installed, if not you can install it by apt-get install ebox-samba or using the Software Management menu on the Zentyal interface.
• If you have the Firewall module enabled, go to Firewall --> Packet Filter --> Filtering rules from internal networks to Zentyal and change the decision for ldap service from DENY to ACCEPT.
• Set a valid shell like 'bash' in "Users and Groups -> LDAP Settings"
• The above change will only affect the users we create from now on.
• Enable File Sharing Module and click on Save Changes.
• Create a user from the Users/Add? User menu on the Zentyal interface and give him Administration rights in order to be able of join the Windows machine to the domain. You can also add another non-privileged user to test the Zentyal Desktop functionality.
• Create a /home/samba/netlogon/logon.bat file containing the following line:

  "%programfiles%\Zentyal Desktop\zentyal-setup-user.exe"
  

  • If you are going to install Zentyal Desktop on other location different than the default one, you should change the above path with your desired directory.
• Make sure you have the Enable PDC option checked under File Sharing -> General Settings. If you want to store the users configuration in the server to allow them to work with their data from any machine in the network you should also check the Enable roaming profiles option.
  • You can find more info about this at the  Official Documentation.

Jabber Service

• Make sure you have the SSL support option on the Zentyal Jabber configuration set to Allow SSL or Force SSL. That's because pidgin is configured by default to use SSL.
• Check the option Enable MUC (Multi User Chat) if you want to use conferences for the groups on your system.
• The Domain name must be set to the same value as your LDAP Base DN. You can check it at "Users and Groups -> LDAP Settings". For example, if your Base DN is "dc=example,dc=com" your Jabber Domain has to be "example.com". By default both LDAP Base DN and Jabber Domain has the same value (the hostname of your machine). So, if you haven't changed them, you don't have to do anything.

• The client needs also to be capable of resolve the Domain name to the Zentyal Server IP address. This won't be a problem if your clients get the DNS configuration from the Zentyal DHCP Server and you have added that domain.
• The users that you create must have enabled the Jabber Account section in the Users/Edit? User menu of Zentyal. You can see the image below.

Mail Service

• You need to have a virtual mail domain created (probably you already entered it in the initial configuration wizard).
• The users should have a mail account created (as shown in the last image of the Jabber service section).
• You can enable the mail retrieval services you want in the Mail/General? menu on Zentyal. But they have to be according to the Zentyal-Desktop\zentyal-desktop.ini in the "Program Files" directory.
• The default values on that file are to use IMAP instead of POP and use SSL when available.

Client Side

Installation:

• An executable Windows Installer is provided. Note that this is not yet a stable release, so you use it at your own risk.
• Login with an administrator account.
• Download the installer from:  http://zentyal.org/download/zentyal-desktop
• Launch installer and click Next on the welcome screen.

• Accept the LGPL license by clicking the checkbox and then Next to continue.

• The installer includes the following software, if you don't want to install any of it, just uncheck the option:

• Enter the destination directory if you want to change the default one. Most users just need to click Next here.

• The installer will now begin to copy the files and do some other necessary actions. Also if you have selected any of the extra components, their installers will be also launched one by one. Follow the instructions on screen or visit their respective websites for more information.

• At the end of the installation process you will be asked for the address of the Zentyal Server. Click the Install button to finish.

• Once the installation has finished, you can change this address at any moment at Start -> Programs -> Zentyal Desktop -> Zentyal Desktop (Configure)
• If the machine is not yet part of the Zentyal domain, you can join it now. You can find further information on how to do it at:  http://howtoforge.org/using-ebox-as-windows-primary-domain-controller-p3

Usage:

• Login into the domain with any user created in the Zentyal Server after the setup and check that the desktop programs are configured for the Zentyal Services.

• If you want to force a reconfiguration just type "%programfiles%\Zentyal Desktop\zentyal-user-reset.bat" in the Start -> Run menu and then login again.

Here is an example desktop after login and running pidgin. Pidgin asks directly for the password without needing to configure the account.

Included Software Resources

• Firefox
  • Downloads (other languages and versions):  http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html
  • Support:  http://support.mozilla.com
• Thunderbird
  • Downloads (other languages and versions):  http://www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/all.html
  • Support:  http://www.mozillamessaging.com/support/
• Ekiga
  • Downloads:  http://ekiga.org/download-ekiga-binaries-or-source-code
  • Documentation:  http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Documentation
• Pidgin
  • Download:  http://pidgin.im/download/windows/
  • User Guide:  http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/Using%20Pidgin

How it Works

• It takes advantage of the Samba server provided by Zentyal Server for the remote authentication and the store of the Roaming Profiles.
• The configuration of the user %APPDATA% directory is done by the logon.bat script in the server that calls the zentyal-setup-user.exe and is ran after login has succeeded.
• There is a "Zentyal Desktop\templates" directory that contains templates for some of the configured applications.
• The zentyal-setup-user.exe program gets different needed values from LDAP (connecting to the Zentyal server) and replaces them on the templates.
• It creates a "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Zentyal\Zentyal Desktop\Configured" entry in the registry to avoid repeating the process after each login.